Description

The famous detective Sherlock Holmes reads in a newspaper that the Tower of London has been closed for "reasons of security". Shortly afterwards he finds out that the Crown Jewels belonging to the royal family were stolen. The fact is kept in secret, and Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes best friend and associate, must retrieve them within forty-eight hours to avert a world-wide scandal.

In this text adventure the player controls Dr. Watson, exploring familiar locations in London, questioning suspects and solving puzzles. The interaction with the game world is performed by typing combinations of verbs and objects. Descriptions of locations must be read carefully, as they may contain clues vital to solving the game.

Forums

Trivia

Cancelled ports

When the game was initially announced in Infocom's newsletter The Status Line (in Volume VII N. 1 Winter/Spring 1988), it was stated that it would be also released for the Atari ST and Apple GS platforms. These conversions were however not offered for sale in the following issues of the newsletter, thus suggesting they were cancelled. Despite this, many websites list (as of October 2015) an Atari ST release. This is perhaps due to a playable version that circulates, but is likely an unofficial conversion.

First built-in clues

Sherlock was the first game released by Infocom with built-in InvisiClues.

Follow-up projects

In an interview, Bob Bates said this about the last project he worked on for Infocom: "The third was always meant to be a Robin Hood game, but when the opportunity came up to do a game based on James Cameron's The Abyss, Infocom asked me to do that instead. That's the game I was working on at the time the company shut down."

Sound

Release 26 (Amiga and Macintosh) supports sound. It's possible to update earlier dat.files (Release 21), and when the appropriate sound files are also available, play them with audio with a suitable interpreter (such as Frotz).